Prop 30: Your Wallet or Your Kids. NO Either approve $36 billion in higher sales and income taxes or else Gov. Brown threatens to shoot the schools. Don't worry, the income taxes are only on the "very wealthy," but it turns out the "very wealthy" include many small businesses filing under sub-chapter S, meaning lower wages, higher prices and fewer jobs. California already has one of the highest overall tax burdens in the country and yet has just approved a budget to spend $8 billion dollars more than it's taking in. Moral of the story: it's the spending stupid. Prop...

Character actor Tom Sizemore will have to go to drug treatment, but he will not have to spend any further time in jail under the terms of a plea agreement he made Wednesday on drug charges. Sizemore and Jason Salcido, the man he was with when he was arrested in Bakersfield in May, pleaded no contest to a charge of transporting drugs for personal use. Sizemore will be placed in Proposition 36, a drug therapy program. But if he fails to stay off drugs he could face four years in prison. His attorney, H.A. Sala, said Sizemore will be released...

With offenders failing to enroll in or complete treatment, the initiative is a 'get out of jail free' card, critics say. The most comprehensive assessment of California's landmark effort to treat drug users rather than jail them has found that nearly half of offenders sentenced under the program fail to complete rehab and more than a quarter never show up for treatment. The high failure rates have prompted a growing number of critics to call for jail sanctions for defendants they say take advantage of the program's lack of penalties. Voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36 in November 2000. Under the...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a measure Wednesday that rewrites a voter-approved initiative to allow short-term jail sentences for drug offenders who fail to complete court-ordered treatment programs. Senate Bill 1137 changes the provisions of Proposition 36, the 2000 initiative voters approved to require treatment instead of prison for certain nonviolent drug offenders. Three out of four of those sentenced to treatment under Proposition 36 never show up for their court-ordered programs, or they fail to complete them. A task force of prosecutors, judges, public defenders and treatment providers drafted the bill in the hope that short-term jail sentences would get...

LOS ANGELES -- Oliver Hamilton says he wasn't afraid of jail: He was afraid of change. Two years ago, the San Diego Navy veteran overcame his fears and his 36-year drug and alcohol addiction with the help of Proposition 36, the ballot measure requiring treatment instead of prison for nonviolent drug offenders. Today, the 49-year-old warehouse manager is fighting a bill the governor plans to sign this week that rewrites the initiative. It would allow judges to impose short-term jail sentences for recalcitrant drug offenders who refuse to comply with their court-ordered treatment. "Really, no addict is afraid of jail,"...

Drug offenders steered into treatment programs instead of jail under provisions set by Proposition 36 in 2000 were more likely to be rearrested for drug-related crimes than defendants who went through non-Prop. 36 treatments, according to a study released today. UCLA researcher David Farabee said that Prop. 36 participants were 48 percent more likely to be rearrested for drug-related crimes within a year of starting treatment. Prop. 36, the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, places first- and second-time nonviolent drug offenders into county-supervised drug treatment programs instead of jails and prisons. Its supporters argued in 2000 that incarceration without...